NH News

House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt announced Friday that he will not seek re-election and will step down at the end of the legislative session.  The following statement was released by the New Hampshire Republican State Committee:

This Memorial Day weekend, the New Hampshire Division of Travel and Tourism predicts more than half a million visitors will flock to the state.  That’s an increase of two-percent over last year.

Speaking at a business awards ceremony in Manchester Friday, First District Congressman Frank Guinta emphasized the role that small businesses play in creating jobs and keeping what he called a diverse economy thriving. Guinta argued that over 30 pieces of jobs-related legislation were passed in the house with bipartisan support and criticized the media for not highlighting this more.  The congressman also stressed the role the federal budget can plan play in fostering a stronger national economy.

“It is important to at least produce a document that shows what your budget priorities are and give predictability to those job creators, and to try to do what you can to improve outdated or archaic decisions from past congresses.”                               

House and Senate negotiators say a team of constitutional lawyers are reviewing a proposed amendment.

Earlier this session, the House and Senate both passed plans.

But the two bodies differed on the appropriate level of court oversight and the role local school districts have in establishing standards.

A high-ranking House member says those disagreements have been addressed.

Senate Majority leader Jeb Bradley says there’s a historic quality to the moment.

“We who have an obligation to put the question to the voters of how we are going to fund education. And that is much bigger than any of us, much bigger than our careers. This is the future of the state.”

All week we are playing excerpt of the documentary, New Hampshire's Immigration Story, which airs this Friday at noon. Today, Keith Shields looks at the story of the Palmer Raids and how local and federal authorities rounded up and arrested 260 Russians, Poles and Lithuanians, all in one night in 1920

A fire on a nuclear-powered submarine at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has injured seven people, including five firefighters.

Crews responded at about 5:40 p.m. Wednesday to the USS Miami SSN 755 at the shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

Rear Admiral Rick Breckenridge said the fire was out Thursday morning and the shipyard was open as usual. He said the three shipyard firefighters, two civilian firefighters and two crew members received minor injuries and were in good shape.

Breckenridge said the fire started in the four forward compartments, which include living and command and control spaces. The sub's reactor wasn't operating at the time and was unaffected. No weapons were on board.

The cause is under investigation.

The Senate has agreed with a House bill that critics say will make it harder to improve access for people with disabilities.

Under current state law, if someone successfully sues a building owner over ADA violations, they are awarded legal fees.

The new bill would leave the matter of fee reimbursement to court discretion.

Proponents of the measure say the move is an attempt to align state and federal law.

But Michael Skibbie with the New Hampshire Disabilities Rights Center see it as a move to limit ADA compliance lawsuits.

If this bill becomes law, he predicts it will wind up hurting business interests.

Lawmakers will look to come to terms on how to regulate groups that sell insurance to New Hampshire cities and towns.

Some are concerned the House-passed plan could be hard on taxpayers.

This legislation comes on the heels of a Secretary of State investigation into the practices of New Hampshire’s largest public risk pool the Local Government Center.

State regulators charge LGC has violated the law and owes its customers – cities and towns – some $60 million.

House and Senate lawmakers have each passed bills aimed, in part, at clarifying how money should be returned to communities when risk pools have a surplus.

Senate Majority leader Jeb Bradley says under the House version, municipal costs could vary month to month.

The New Hampshire Senate has killed half a dozen controversial measures supported by the House.

With little debate, Senators dispatched several hot-button issues that came up this session.

The measures were tied to completely unrelated bills.

Senators shot down a bill to require a 24 hour wait before an abortion could be performed, a 1 year moratorium on refugee resettlement in the state and a plan to weaken collective bargaining rights.

Senate President Peter Bragdon says on each of those measures the Senate had made its voice clear.

“I think the Senate generally felt that on issues related to business and taxes, distracting it with some of the social issues was not something the Senate wanted to revisit.”

Jim Bassett is well-known and well-liked in the New Hampshire Bar. But his nomination drew criticism from some conservatives. They didn’t like that Bassett supported the Brady gun law on as a GOP congressional candidate in 1994. They also don’t like that Bassett said he accepted the Claremont education funding rulings as precedent during his confirmation hearing. Most councilors dismissed these concerns, and prior to the confirmation vote, District 2’s Dan St. Hillare predicted  Bassett would be a great addition to the court.

“He is a strict constitutionalist. He is an intellectual, so he looks at what the constitution on says and derives his opinions from what these documents say.”